


Cathedral

by left_uncovered



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz, Be More Chill RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Hysterical Literature, M/M, Oblivious, Other, Sexual exploration, Vibrators, arts kids being pretentious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2019-02-06 02:23:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12807567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/left_uncovered/pseuds/left_uncovered
Summary: “Look, it’s not a money thing, but I’m not paying 70k a year to live inside the box. No one’s ever done this before. It’s,” he almost says avant-garde but doesn’t because he knows she’ll give him shit for it for the rest of the year if he does. “Radical vulnerability,” he settles on.Will Connolly: Tisch senior, boundary-breaking artist, having world's slowest bisexual awakening.





	Cathedral

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kalopsia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalopsia/gifts).



> Exactly what it says on the tin. Title from [the short story of the same name](http://public.wsu.edu/~bryanfry/Carver,%20Cathedral.pdf) by Raymond Carver.
> 
> Some quick notes:  
> \- This is 100% fictional. It's not meant to be speculation or commentary on the real Will who exists outside this story. If RPF squicks you out, now is the time to turn back.  
> \- Kristen is Will's sister, and Damon is Damon Daunno, his actual rl best friend. Brandon is Brandon Uranowitz, who also graduated from Tisch in 2007, though I have no idea if he and Will actually knew each other. Everyone else is made up.  
> \- Hysterical Literature is a real thing, though its origins have been changed for the sake of plot.  
> \- I'm several days late, but: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WPC.

_“Never thought anything like this could happen in your lifetime, did you, bub? Well, it's a strange life, we all know that.”_

_\-- Raymond Carver, Cathedral_

*

Here are the things Will knows about Brandon Uranowitz:

He’s got a killer beard. Will’s turning twenty-three this year, and the hair on the right side of his face still grows faster than the hair on the left. It’s a nightmare.

He’ll slouch down in his seat in their Dirty Realism class, but sit up straight when he speaks, gesturing and pointing with his name card.

He’s into dudes, probably exclusively.

Will tries not to think too hard about the last one.

It’s the third week of his Physical Acting class, and Will’s already running late. He’d been up all night talking to Kristen, and had snoozed his way through his alarm, so by the time he gets to class with two minutes to spare, everyone’s already paired up for a warm-up of statue. He goes to drop his backpack in the corner, wincing when he feels his professor’s unimpressed glare on his back. He’s getting ready to force one of the pairs into a trio, when the door swings open again, revealing a very disheveled Brandon Uranowitz.

“It looks like you’re in luck, Mr. Connolly,” his professor says as he shuffles over to where Brandon is standing, pulling his sweatshirt up over his head and throwing it down next to his bag.

 _Hi,_ Brandon mouths. _Hey_ , Will mouths back.

To say he knows Brandon is a bit of an overstatement. He’d seen him in _The Last Five Years_ last season, and they’re in Dirty Realism together, but it’s probably more accurate to say Will wishes he knew him. Last week, he’d singlehandedly rescued a nosediving discussion about _The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter_ – which everyone had clearly hated – by talking about the intersection of dirty realism and southern gothic. Will didn’t like the book much either, but that made the save even more impressive. He’d hung back to talk to Brandon about it, but hesitated a beat too long, and then Brandon was out the door, and it would be a little too weird to follow him after that. These days, Will mostly stares at the back of his head in class and hopes he says something smart enough to get him to start a sentence with, “Jumping off what Will said…” That they’d both been late to class would be a blessing in disguise if statue actually allowed partners to talk.

“You cool with being clay first?” Brandon asks.

“Uh yeah, sure.”

The prompts today are easy enough – only single words and not detailed scenes. In response to _revolution_ , Brandon lays a hand over his to close his fist, then raises his arm up above his head. One hand comes to rest against his back, tilting his body forward, so he’s mid-stride. When it’s his turn to be sculptor, he has Brandon mimic his expression for _curiosity_. They go back and forth for a few minutes, and Will’s pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to step into this silent, shared headspace with him.

They’re on the last round now, Will back to being clay, when the professor says, “Okay, now show me _intimacy_.”

Will feels something in him shift, a clammy discomfort rising in the form of a light blush he tries very hard to tamp down, but he does his best to keep his posture relaxed so Brandon – who thank god, doesn’t seem to have picked up on the tension – can sculpt him.

He motions for Will to lie on the ground, and when he does, he grips his ankles with both hands and spreads his legs apart. Will swallows and stares straight up at the ceiling, tries not to look at how Brandon is moving his body. His skin feels hot all over but every point of contact between them leaves him shivering. He shuts his eyes, keeps them that way until he feels Brandon cup his chin gently to turn his head. When he opens his eyes, he sees Brandon regarding him thoughtfully. It makes his stomach turn to know he knows exactly what he must be thinking.

Brandon points at his face, and then at his own, a tacit _copy me_ gesture Will nods at, and then he’s closing his eyes and tilting his head back, making one of the most disturbingly believable o faces Will’s ever seen.

Not that he’s ever seen one on a guy or wants to, for that matter.

It’s definitely the shock of the moment that has him staring longer than is strictly necessary for him to memorize the expression.

Before Brandon can notice, he shuts his eyes again, trying to recreate the expression. He tilts his head back a little and lets his jaw go slack. As he arranges each of his features, he becomes immediately aware of how wrong this feels on his face, that this is definitely not the way his muscles pull while he’s mid-orgasm. It’s a strange thought, that he’s wearing Brandon’s o face on top of his own like a mask. That he knows what Brandon’s o face looks like now.

He doesn’t think he breathes again until the exercise is over, and he’s getting up off the ground and dusting off his clothes, trying to look anywhere but at Brandon. He barely even manages a “Yeah, you too,” in response to his, “Hey, nice job,” before he’s scurrying off to the other side of the room to find Theo in case they have to partner up again. There’s an itchy, frustrated feeling right beneath his skin that refuses to settle, leaves him jittery the rest of the hour.

*

“Will, hey!”

He freezes, before mentally cursing himself for not getting out of the room fast enough. Counts to five, forces his face into a neutral expression, and then turns around.

“Hey, Brandon.”

Brandon catches up to him, smiling a little nervously. They walk into the hall for several seconds of fraught silence before Brandon speaks again.

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable earlier,” he says, all earnest big eyes. “There’s no other situation where I would touch you like that except during an exercise.”

He’s being so sincere it immediately makes Will feel guilty, and he nearly trips over himself trying to formulate a response.

“No no no, I wasn’t uncomfortable,” he lies. “I didn’t think you were, uh, coming onto me. It wasn’t like –” He makes a vague gesture with one hand. “You specifically or anything. I was just surprised.”

He considers adding, _and_ _I’m not homophobic or anything, so don’t worry about that_ , but it sounds so awkward and so much like what an actual homophobe would say that he decides not to.

Brandon seems to visibly relax at that, shoulders releasing their tension.

“Good. Just making sure. Hey, you going to Dirty Realism?”

Will nods.

They wind up taking the fifteen-minute walk down Waverly Place together, talking about Raymond Carver and the working class and rural America. Brandon’s possibly even more brilliant up close, which would be a little intimidating if he weren’t so disarming.

Will hasn’t actually done today’s reading – another side-effect of late night calls with Kristen – but he’d looked it up on Spark Notes while shoveling cereal into his mouth that morning, and if there’s one thing three years of drama school have given him, it’s the ability to pretend to be someone who knows what he’s doing.

It must work, because later in class, Brandon picks up his name card again and points in Will’s general direction, saying, “Yeah, Will and I were actually talking about this earlier…” and it takes too much self-restraint not to fist-pump right then and there.

*

Will returns to his apartment later that night, reassured that he isn’t some closet homophobe who can’t stand gay people touching him in a strictly professional way. That morning must have been a momentary glitch, wires getting crossed, whatever.

He’s always been an open-minded guy, after all. He’s marched at Pride every year, for fuck’s sake. If some asshole harassed Brandon at a bar, Will would totally step between them. Not that that’s likely to happen in the city. And not that he’d be particularly useful if it did.

He puts the thought out of his mind for the rest of the evening, and it mercifully doesn’t return the next morning either, or even the next week, and the next time he sees Brandon, he doesn’t think about it at all.

Doesn’t think about it when they’re meeting for coffee after class so he can pick Brandon’s brain about Carver or pairing up for more Physical Acting exercises or even as Brandon starts meeting Damon and Sara and Meg and being slowly absorbed into their friend group, spending more and more time running lines and reading Shakespeare and getting high at their various apartments as the weather gets colder.

*

And then Meg has to go and upset his newly-established equilibrium when they’re hanging at his place several weeks later.

Meg’s an art history major. She’d gone to high school with Sara in a small town in Michigan, and when they’d both gotten to New York, it was just easier to stick together. After Damon had befriended Sara, it didn’t long for her to worm her way into the group, too.

Tonight she’s talking about some kind of art thing a friend of a friend’s roommate is doing, that she’s been trying to rope them into for the past few days. She’d called it radical, but Will’s only half-listening, draped across the couch and already pleasantly buzzed from the joint he and Brandon have been passing back and forth.

“Hysterical _what_?” Damon says. He’s lying on the floor, idly plucking at his guitar.

Meg pulls out her phone. “Literature. Here, I’ll show you.” She navigates to a black and white webpage. Damon gets up and hovers over her shoulder, reading the text out loud, but Will’s already googling it himself. The thumbnail of the first video that pops up shows a woman sitting at a table with a book in her hands. He clicks play.

“…a video series that explores feminism, mind/body dualism, distraction portraiture, and the contrast between culture and sexuality,” Damon reads over the sound of the woman announcing she’ll be reading Whitman.

“Hmm,” Sara says. “Sounds cool. But like, what is it?”

Will’s trying to figure that out, too. The video’s a little quiet, so he turns the volume up and starts fast-forwarding through it to see if anything interesting happens. Meg’s got good taste, is always taking them around to obscure, next-big-thing galleries in the city, isn’t really the type to call books on tape in black and white _radical_. He’s two minutes from the end when his eye catches a frame that’s so absurd he’s sure he’s hallucinated it. He clicks play – and is mortified when the sounds of an immodest orgasm immediately fill the room.

“Jesus, Will, if you wanted to watch porn, your room’s right there –”

“I’m not,” he says a little frantically, pausing the video and turning his phone screen so they can see. It’s frozen on a frame of the woman with her head thrown back.

Meg is completely losing it in the corner. He gestures at her, feeling a little betrayed. “It’s not porn. It’s that thing Meg was – Hysterical Literature.”

The laughter abruptly dies down, and the smiles slide off his friends’ faces so synchronously it’s a little impressive.

“You’re trying to recruit us for a _porno_?” Sara hisses. “I mean, we’re poor, but we’re not _that_ poor.”

Meg rolls her eyes. “It’s not a porno. It’s performance art. A woman – or I guess a man, they’re doing those too now – reads from a book while sitting on a vibrator. It’s pretty interesting stuff.” She says it so blandly, like someone would answer a question about the weather. Despite that, Will feels himself perking up.

“Sounds shady as fuck,” Sara says, just as Brandon asks, “So it’s like endurance art?”

Meg very pointedly ignores Sara’s comment and turns to him instead. “Yeah!” she says, this time with more affect. “But it’s more about dualism, I think. Above the table and below the table, mind and body, performance and authenticity, composure and vulnerability…The endurance is just the vehicle. There are a bunch of essays on the website from participants. It’s a fascinating read.”

“Huh,” Brandon says.

“You should consider it.”

Will is more caught up in the logistics of it. It’s interesting in theory, but he’s not sure how much he likes the practical idea of sitting on a vibrator. It just seems too – something. He doesn’t know. It’s probably more Brandon’s thing anyway.

“Maybe,” Brandon says mildly.

Sara snorts. “You’re fucking joking.” Her voice sounds like it’s coming from very far away, distorted like they’re under water. “I mean, you gotta have a line somewhere –”

“You don’t have to be such a traditionalist,” Meg says.

“I’m not a traditionalist. I just don’t get it. It’s porn in art’s clothing. Weird shit for the sake of weird shit isn’t revolutionary –”

“Straw man!”

Someone’s nudging his side. He turns and sees Brandon blinking at him blearily.

“Hey, pass it over,” he says, gesturing at the joint.

“Oh. Sorry.”

Brandon brings the joint to his lips and inhales slowly. His mouth is red, stark against the white paper. He exhales and then passes it back.

Will wraps his lips around it and sucks. It’s a little damp from Brandon’ mouth.

Meg and Sara are still arguing, and Meg’s gone full verbal lawnmower now, though he can hardly pick out the words.

He lets Brandon finish the joint and wonders idly if he’s going to get too high and do something weird. Hopefully not.

But maybe.

*

A few hours later, after he’s sobered up and his friends have gone home, he climbs into bed with his laptop and googles _hysterical literature_.

There are only four videos on the website so far. Three of them are of women. The single, lonely thumbnail displaying a clean-shaven dark-haired man seems to taunt him, as if saying, _I bet you won’t click this_.

He’s not into guys.

But it wouldn’t hurt to round out his research on this…art.

He opens the video. It’s only six minutes long, which Will thinks is a little unimpressive. If he were in this guy’s place, he knows he’d last at least a little longer. He sets his laptop down next to his head, stretching out and burrowing a little further into his blanket.

On screen, the guy starts reading. “ _Part one_ ,” he says. “ _The Burial of the Dead_.”

Will nods approvingly at his choice of material. Listening to some T.S. Eliot isn’t the worst way to fall asleep.

The video’s a little boring at first. If Will didn’t know any better, he’d think this was just some new Audible.com freebie. His vision blurs, and he yawns, getting ready to close his eyes and let the literary allusions rock him to sleep, when a sharp gasp snaps his screen back into focus.

“ _From satin cases poured in rich pro-profusion…_ ”

The hand the guy’s not using to hold the book is clenched tight on top of the table, and there’s the slightest hint of a wobble to his voice. Will wants to look away, but he’s transfixed, eyes tracking the slow, shaky turning of the pages, the tiny tremors that begin in his shoulders and extend down toward his fingertips.

_“Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair spread out in fiery points...”_

He makes it until _The Fire Sermon_ , before he puts the book down, choking out the refrains about the sweet Thames from between clenched teeth.

In the silence, Will hears his heart hammering in his ears. The guy has his head down, gaze fixed on the table, and Will needs to know – he needs to see –

The guy murmurs _fuck_ quietly, almost too low for the mic to pick up, and then looks up, straight into the camera, eyes wide and mouth hanging open, like he’s shocked at how good it feels and –

Will slams his laptop shut so forcefully he’s afraid he’s ruined the hinges.

He’s breathing too loud in the quiet dark room, his skin too hot under the blankets. He curls up on his side, trying to will himself to sleep, ignoring the way his boxers pull across his aching, leaking dick.

*

He wakes up in the morning on his stomach, with matching wet spots on his sheets and boxers. He hasn’t had a wet dream since he was seventeen, for god’s sake.

He rolls over and groans a long, empathetic _fuck_ into his pillow.

*

“So,” Will says casually, during a lull in rehearsal. “You think you’re gonna do that Hysterical Literature thing?”

“That what?” Brandon’s preoccupied marking off his copy of the script with a new stage direction. Will waits for him to finish before speaking.

“You know, that thing Meg was talking about the other night.”

He hopes Brandon wasn’t too high to remember, because revolutionary art or not, he doesn’t think he has a high enough embarrassment threshold to explain it again.

“Oh, the porn?”

“It’s not –” Will bites his lip. “Yeah, that. Meg says the pay’s not bad.”

“Well,” Brandon says, whacking him lightly on the head with his rolled-up script. “I’m not cheap.”

Will snorts though he feels a little betrayed. Brandon sounded at least a bit interested when Meg had brought it up. But maybe it was the kind of weed-induced interest that fades with the high. Or the car-crash-can’t-look-away kind.

“Oh okay, I just thought cause,” he starts and then Brandon cuts him off, laying a hand over his heart and looking scandalized.

“Just because I’m gay –”

“No! Not that –”

“– doesn’t mean I want a vibrator in me on camera,” he says over the sound of Will protesting. Will looks around frantically, relieved to see there isn’t anyone within earshot.

“Besides,” and now he has a shit-eating grin on his face. He leans in so close Will can feel his breath on the shell of his ear. He has the very distinct feeling that he’s in over his head. “How do you know I’d be the one taking it?”

And then Brandon’s getting back on stage from the wings, script in hand, leaving him alone, red-faced, skin hot, jeans too tight.

*

(He does wonder, abstractly, what it must feel like to have something in him. It just sounds like it would hurt – the digestive system is one way for a reason, damnit – but if it did, then why would so many guys do it on the reg? Damon had once shown him a Reddit post about some guy shoving drumsticks up his ass to get to his prostate, and that had gotten a good laugh out of both of them, but – he wonders.)

*

It only gets worse during Dirty Realism.

Today they’re talking about _Cathedral_ , and some freshman who thinks he’s god’s gift to literature has spent the past five minutes talking about how “Robert may not be able to see, but it’s the narrator who is truly blind”, as if he’s the only person in the room capable of googling “cathedral raymond carver themes”.

It’s good what he’s saying is so banal, though, because Will doesn’t think he’s capable of higher thought right now, brain still stuck on a loop of that moment during rehearsal. He knows it didn’t mean anything, knows that Brandon does that kind of thing to everyone. Last week he’d given Meg a lap dance in the middle of her apartment while _Careless Whisper_ played in the background. It’s all just a big joke, he knows. But he stews all the same.

He’s always been proud of how vivid his imagination is. When he was a kid, he and Kristen would have contests to see who could construct the most elaborate storyline from whatever makeshift props they could find in their parents’ closets. But now he wishes it were a little less overactive, because underneath his eyes, his brain is playing a full color HD montage of Brandon leaning in close, Brandon’s lips wrapped around the joint, Brandon reaching down to spread his legs apart.

Brandon leaning over to pick up his name card, pointing with it, and asking if he can read a segment of _Cathedral_.

Will sits up straighter in his chair and blinks the visions away.

He’s not into guys. There’s nothing wrong with being into guys, obviously, but he, personally, just isn’t. He’s approaching his mid-twenties, for fuck’s sake. He couldn’t have gotten this far in life without realizing it if he did.

He refocuses.

Will flips through his book, trying to find the page while Brandon starts reading.

“ _The blind man said, ‘We're drawing a cathedral. Me and him are working on it. Press hard,’ he said to me. ‘That's right. That's good,’ he said._ ”

Will shifts in his seat. Brandon’s always been good at reading out loud, tone clear and smooth, mouth wrapping every word in meaning.

‘‘ _You got it, bub, I can tell. You didn't think you could. But you can, can't you? You're cooking with gas now. You know what I'm saying? We're going to really have us something here in a minute…_ ’”

Brandon’s put the book down and is gesturing and pointing again. Will thinks he must be saying something very interesting right now, but it’s hard to marshal any meaning from the syllables. He feels weightless. Everything else feels too far away.

*

He goes to Damon’s apartment later that night to run lines.

“I think I have a hard-on for Raymond Carver,” he says once he’s through the door, making a beeline for the couch and collapsing onto it.

Damon blinks. “The _What We Talk About_ guy?” He does a quick image search on his phone. “Hm. You could probably do worse.”

“No, not like actual Raymond Carver. His _writing_.”

“Really,” Damon says dryly. “You have a hard-on for literature.”

“Exactly!” Will says, pleased that Damon gets it. He’s been turning over the moments from the past few weeks – the T.S. Eliot-induced wet dreams, the boners during Dirty Realism – and this is the only possible explanation. He flips open his laptop so he can download his annotated copy of the script, and then quotes from memory. “Like, listen to this: ‘ _His fingers rode my fingers as my hand went over the paper_.’ Rode my fingers? Who writes that?”

He logs into his account, and immediately regrets it when Damon sees what he’d spent the better part of last night watching. At least he’d chosen a video of one of the women this time.

“Jesus Will, that _again_? I don’t think it’s the literature you have a hard-on for, man.”

“First of all, it’s not a sex thing.”

Damon gestures at the screen. “She’s literally mid-orgasm.”

“Orgasms aren’t necessarily sexual.”

“Well, since you’re getting off to 20th century minimalists now, I guess not.”

Will ignores him. “It’s _incidental_ that it’s an orgasm. It’s about being vulnerable on camera. We keep talking about how acting is baring yourself to an audience, but it isn’t really. You’re not baring yourself, you’re baring your character. This is just the logical extreme.” He pauses in sudden realization. “Oh my god. Amateur porn is the most authentic art.”

Damon groans, face in his hands. “Oh god, you’re gonna do it, aren’t you?”

Will holds up a finger.

“I never said that.”

“Will, come on. Do you really want pornographic endurance art to be the only thing attached to your name when you graduate?”

“Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence,” he says, though Damon’s probably right.

“I just think,” Damon says carefully, “That this is giving you experience for the wrong industry.”

At Will’s sour look, he raises his hands in acquiesce.

“Or the right one! Since amateur porn is the highest art. I’m sure Sean Cody will be happy to have you.”

Will responds by shoving his face straight into the couch cushions.

They don’t get much practice done that night.

*

Damon hadn’t taken it seriously, but the thing is – it’s a valid point, the logical extremes.

The first time he’d had to cry on stage had been for a high school production of Macbeth. It’d been the easiest, most painless cry of his life, because he wasn’t thinking about getting turned down to prom, or having to fill out ten college applications, or any of the other things seventeen-year-old him would have called stressful. Instead, all he had to do was crawl into someone else’s skin for two hours and pretend. For two hours, Will and his problems and insecurities didn’t have to exist. He was Macbeth wearing Will’s face. That’s always what’s come easiest to him. His drama teacher had praised his vulnerability, but really, it was the opposite. He went on stage to hide.

Hysterical Literature makes him wonder who he’s supposed to be in front of that camera other than himself.

*

 **FROM:** ddaunno@nyu.edu  
**TO:** wconnolly@nyu.edu  
**SUBJECT:** make good choices

what if kristen finds it?

 **FROM:** wconnolly@nyu.edu  
**TO:** ddaunno@nyu.edu  
**SUBJECT:** Re: make good choices

Finds what?

 **FROM:** wconnolly@nyu.edu  
**TO:** manderson@nyu.edu  
**SUBJECT:** Hysterical Literature contact details

Hey Meg,

Do you know how I could get in touch with the guy working on Hysterical Literature? I tried the website but I don’t think there’s any contact info on it. Is it invitational only?

WPC

 **FROM:** manderson@nyu.edu  
**TO:** wconnolly@nyu.edu  
**SUBJECT:** Re: Hysterical Literature contact details

Hi Will,

The guy you’re looking for is Ryan Corey – rcorey@columbia.edu. He’s a grad student at Columbia. Hysterical Literature is part of his dissertation, so I’m not sure what system he’s got set up for participants, but I’d think it’s open as long as you’re legal. It’s worth shooting him an email about it. Good luck!

-Meg

 **FROM:** wconnolly@nyu.edu  
**TO:** rcorey@columbia.edu  
**SUBJECT:** Hysterical Literature

Hello Ryan,

My name is Will Connolly. I’m a senior at NYU Tisch majoring in drama. My friend Megan Anderson informed me about your work on Hysterical Literature – it’s a fascinating look into the push/pull dynamic of composure and vulnerability that underlies any performance. If you’re currently accepting participants, I’d love to get involved.

Best,

WPC

*

Ryan gets back to him at the end of the day with a generic “Glad to have you on board!” email with two attachments. The first is a long list of performance SOPs in font so small Will has to zoom in several times to read it. It includes a list of materials, specific down to the brand of vibrator, condom, and lube. He tries not to think too hard about that. The second is a document for informed consent.

He’s just finished sending back the signed version and a time for his session when the phone rings. It’s Kristen, which is odd because she usually never calls on weekdays, and never this late, too busy with grad school. But they haven’t talked in a few weeks, and it’ll be nice to have a conversation with someone who isn’t going to heckle him to hell and back for once.

“It’s November. You can’t be that broke yet,” she says as soon as the call connects.

“Hey Kristen,” he says automatically. “What?”

“If you can’t make rent I’ll send you some cash, but Jesus, Will, you don’t have to prostitute yourself!”

He feels his face heat up, and then admonishes himself because this isn’t even something he should be ashamed of. It’s _art_.

“I’m not – who told you that?”

There’s a long, careful pause. And then she says, “Damon called. He said your friends couldn’t talk some sense into you and he needed to “call in the cavalry”.”

He groans. “Fucking traitor.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t convince him to join you,” she says dryly.

“That’s not how it works. It’s one person at a time, reading a book while –”

“ _Please_ don’t finish that sentence.”

He shuts his mouth a little petulantly, but then when it looks like she’s about to hang up on him, opens it again because he can’t resist getting the last word.

“Look, it’s not a money thing, but I’m not paying 70k a year to live inside the box. No one’s ever done this before. It’s,” he almost says _avant-garde_ but doesn’t because he knows she’ll give him shit for it for the rest of the year if he does. “Radical vulnerability,” he settles on.

There’s a long pause over the line.

“Your head just disappeared up your ass,” Kristen hisses. “There’s a reason no one’s ever done this before. _Radical vulnerability_? What do you think Yale’s gonna think of this…softcore porn?”

“Performance art,” he corrects.

“Don’t change the subject.”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. Nothing. They’re not even gonna see it. It’s niche, and it’s not like my last name will be on it.”

“Yeah, just your face, not like that’s important in our business. If you just wanted to get off –”

He makes a frustrated noise, cutting her off. He’s getting a little sick of having to justify himself to everyone, and while he’d never planned on telling Kristen, he’d thought that she at least would be on his side if he did.

“Could you just lay off me? It’s not a money thing and it’s not a sex thing. I know you think it’s stupid, but I’m tired of doing the same old shit again and again. This is different. It’s exciting.”

Kristen sighs.

“I know I can’t stop you, but just – sleep on it, okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, just to make her happy, though he’s already emailed to schedule a session.

“I have to go. But take care of yourself. Stop making me worry. Love you, Will.”

“Love you too,” he says, feeling more tired than before.

After he’s hung up and settled back into bed, staring at a very interesting water stain on the ceiling, he thinks about how he might not have been entirely honest with her. The money’s a nice bonus, but he’d probably have a done it for less, so it’s not that.

It definitely _is_ the appeal of doing something new; he’s proud of the work he’s done at Tisch, but none of it could ever touch the DIY theater in New Orleans, because that was _new_. And it’ll be new for a while, but not always, and he’s not sure he can keep calling himself an artist if he lets himself stagnate.

But, he thinks, shifting in bed, maybe it is also a sex thing. Just a little bit. It’s not that he’s tired of his hand or that he couldn’t get laid if he wanted to – he knows he’s a little more than attractive, doesn’t even feel bad admitting it anymore since it’s just true. It’s that he knows if he did, it would be more of the same again, just like with drama.

So he’s a little curious, sue him. Expanding his personal boundaries is what he’s supposed to be doing at college.

*

Hysterical Literature is shot in an unfurnished studio apartment in Williamsburg, because of course it is. The set-up is basic, just a chair and a table with cloth draped down the front, and a camera on a tripod across it. After briefing him again, Ryan sends him to the bathroom down the hall, vibrator and condom and bottle of lube in hand.

He'll never admit it to Kristen or Damon, but he’s actually a little nervous. He’d tried fingering himself the night before, just to see what it was like, but stopped before anything interesting could happen. It felt like it was cheating, to try to prepare himself when the whole point was to be vulnerable.

The curiosity wins out over any lingering fear, though, and gets him on the train to Brooklyn one gloomy Saturday morning in November. Ryan had told him to dress however he wanted, so he chose his standard audition outfit: the nicest white button-down in his closet and jeans, though he figures they won't matter much once he actually gets there. In his backpack are an extra pair of boxers. Just in case.

Now that he's actually here, though staring down his reflection in the bathroom mirror as Ryan tests his camera outside, he feels a small spike of anxiety. God, what is he doing? He doesn’t even like having his ass played with. Well – he doesn’t know what it's like to have his ass played with, but he doubts he’d enjoy it. That guy in the video had come in six minutes, but what if he doesn’t come at all? Just finishes the story, closes the book, and gets up and leaves. That would probably be worse than coming too early because then it’d just be books on tape in black and white. And he’d be the only participant who couldn’t get it up on camera. Maybe he should look up some porn on his phone just to get himself going a little. But that seems like cheating, too, just in the opposite direction.

He takes a steadying breath. Okay, no. Just focus on the task at hand: getting the vibrator in. He can do that. He pulls his jeans and boxers down so they pool around his ankles. He isn't even half-hard. God. He washes his hands, pats them dry, and then squeezes some lube into his palm.

With the lube slicking the way, the first finger doesn’t sting as badly as he remembered. It still feels strange, though, a foreign intrusion. But it’s not bad. He thrusts his finger in a few times, letting his body adjust, before adding a second. He uses his other hand to stroke his cock, gentle and teasing, just to give him something to focus on that isn’t the two fingers up his ass. He flashes back to his conversation with Brandon backstage and thinks, there has to be a reason so many guys do this. It can’t just be not bad. He crooks his fingers, searching, and when he finally brushes against his prostate, he can’t help how he gasps, shocked, stumbling forward and bracing himself against the sink with his free hand. His cock twitches against his thigh and begins to harden. He breathes in, once, twice, catches his flushed reflection in the mirror.

Okay. So that’s the reason.

The vibrator is trickier to work in, but at least he knows what he’s looking for now. He rolls the condom on with shaking fingers and slicks it up, then reaches down to press it against his entrance. He forces his muscles to relax, but it still won’t go, and for a while he thinks he can’t, it’s too big, he’ll have to call this off – then something just gives, and it slides in. He breathes a sigh of relief. Okay. Not too bad. He's not used to the pressure or the fullness, but it doesn't hurt, either. He slides it deeper, continuing to stroke his cock lazily, until he feels it nudge against his prostate, the good shock of pleasure from earlier returning. His cock’s gone all the way hard now, and he gives it one last long stroke before pulling his boxers back on.

He washes his hands and pushes his bangs out of his face, tries to make it look like he hasn’t spent the last ten minutes fingering himself in the bathroom before the camera has even started rolling. He leaves his pants hanging on the clothing rack and reenters the room. He tries not to wince at the growing feeling of fullness making itself apparent in every step he takes.

“You ready?” Ryan asks casually, like he has no idea what Will had just been doing a few feet away.

He nods and takes his seat, picking up his book and opening it to the page for _Cathedral_. He considers pulling his boxers down, but decides he’s not entirely comfortable having his junk hanging out, even if he is about to let some random grad student use a vibrator to stimulate him to orgasm.

“If you wanna tap out, just say so. I can sit outside of your line of sight, if that helps.”

“Uh, yeah. I’d appreciate that.” He’s not too keen about accidentally making eye contact while mid-orgasm.

“Great!” Ryan claps his hands together. “Let’s get started then.” He counts down with his fingers and hits play.

“Hi,” Will says, looking into the camera. He smiles a little. “My name’s Will, and I’ll be reading _Catheral_ by Raymond Carver.”

He looks down at the page, steadies himself, and begins reading.

 “ _This blind man, an old friend of my wife's, he was on his way to spend the night_.”

The vibrator buzzes to life just as he finishes the first sentence, a gentle hum inside him. He starts a little, but doesn’t stutter, forces himself to focus on each syllable. It’s not so hard – the buzz is good, but not distractingly so; he’s feeling it more around his rim than his prostate. And it’s easy enough to forget about the fullness when he’s lost in the words of the story. He’s always liked the directness of Carver’s prose, how clearly each unadorned sentence spoke for itself.

His cock is still hard in his boxers. He tells himself to focus on what’s above the table. Just words. Just syllables.

He’s rolling his shoulders a little, letting himself fall into the rhythm of the words, when he clenches involuntarily, pulling the vibrator in deeper, so the thick length of it presses deep against his prostate. He can’t help the quiet way he laughs then, mid-sentence, a little nervous and surprised. The next sentence is harder to get out.

_“...touched his fingers to every part of her face, her nose – even her neck!”_

He fidgets a little in his seat but forces himself to keep reading. There’s a growing ache inside him, a slow, burning need that starts in his stomach and bleeds into his back, down to his pelvis, his cock, his ass, the sensitive skin of his inner thighs where he can feel gooseflesh beginning to rise. It’s not quite like jerking off, the need deeper and more diffuse now. And fuck, he thinks, trying to swallow away the sudden dryness in his throat. He’s just – full.

He tells himself to stay above the table, that anything beneath it doesn’t matter, but it’s hard, when he’s so abruptly aware of how full he is. It’s strange, being on the other side. He’s not much of a talker in bed, but he’s tried a couple of times, teased girlfriends and hook-ups, asking them if they liked being filled up with his cock. He shudders a little, with the realization that he wants someone to say that to him. Maybe Brandon. Someone. Anyone. He just needs –

Sweat is beginning to bead on his forehead. He needs a distraction. He needs to stay above the table. The room is suddenly too hot, so he lays the book flat on the table and starts rolling his sleeves up, just to give his hands something to do.

On the page, the narrator is talking about trains, but all meaning has evaporated from the text. Just words. Just syllables. He forces his gaze onto the page, willing his eyes to focus. To read.

“ _When I did go to sleep, I had these dreams. Sometimes I'd – fuck_.” Ryan must do something with the vibrator setting, because suddenly the buzz is stronger, sending a shock of heat through his entire body. He jolts in his seat, fingers curling around the book, leaving little indents on the page. His shoulders are pulling tight. Everything about him feels tight and wound up. His cock won’t stop twitching in his boxers now, sensitive head pulling across the fabric, leaving it wet and sticky. He wants to reach down and touch himself so badly, anything to relieve some of the pressure building there. He’s hit with the insane thought that he could do it, just say fuck it and let go right now. He wants to. He doesn’t know what he wants. His entire body feels like an exposed nerve. He just needs a minute to collect himself, but the vibrator against his prostate is relentless. He wants to make it to the end of the story, he’s already so close, but the beat of need inside him isn’t fading. It feels like that moment before he comes, except it doesn’t stop, just stretches out in a slow, pleasurable burn, his body primed for an orgasm just out of reach.

_“Never thought anything like this could happen in your lifetime, did you, bub? Well it’s a strange life, we all know that. Go on now. Keep it up.”_

Go on now, he thinks. Keep it up. Go on now.

He imagines those words from Brandon’s lips, dirty little encouragements. Imagines his teasing smile. Never though anything like this could happen in your lifetime, did you, bub?

He’s distantly aware he’s put the book down. His eyes are screwed shut, head hanging low, breaths leaving his mouth in quick, desperate pants. His hips are thrusting forward into nothing. The feeling is almost too much without the distraction of the book. He wants – he wants –

_You didn't think you could. But you can, can't you?_

It’s the memory of Brandon’s words, so much dirtier in the desperate heat of the moment, that does it for him. He comes, high little _oh oh oh’s_ falling from his lips. He’s never come untouched before, the newness of the sensation overwhelming him, the tremors running through him making him feel shaky and out of control.

The vibrator doesn’t shut off right away, just keeps buzzing, heavy against his too-sensitive prostate, making him squirm with oversensitivity. When it shuts off, he feels his entire body give, and he nearly slumps against the table, only keeping himself up on his elbows.

He’s not sure how long it takes awareness to return to him in hazy fragments. When he opens his eyes, he’s back in a studio apartment in Williamsburg, staring down a still-rolling camera. Jesus Christ.

He straightens out, brushing the bangs that have fallen over his forehead out of his face.

When he speaks, his voice sounds wrecked.

“I’m Will. And this was _Cathedral_ by Raymond Carver.”

*

In the bathroom, he cleans himself up in a numb daze. The vibrator slides out easily, and now, with more presence of mind, he’s a little embarrassed at his responding whine at the emptiness. But then, he thinks, as he wipes away the stickiness on his thighs and washes out his ruined boxers, why should he be?

*

On the train home, he flips back to the last page. He hadn’t quite gotten to the end, figures he should finish the story. There’s a man busking with his guitar, walking the length of the car, but Will can barely hear him over the hum of static in his brain. The train window returns a reflection of him exactly as he was this morning, but he swears his skin’s never fit like this before.

_“Well?” he said. “Are you looking?”_

_My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn't feel like I was inside anything._

_“It's really something,” I said._

**Author's Note:**

> This fic owes its existence to [Emma](https://danisnotofire.tumblr.com), who lovingly nursed it via chatfic/general enabling from its origins as a set of throwaway tags to this monstrosity. She's responsible for Will's very appropriate reading material and for pretty much any accurate details about the lives of theater kids. YOU'RE A STAR AND ILU.
> 
> This is my first foray into writing a fic of this length with a sort of plot all in one go, and it was HARD. Feedback/concrit very much appreciated.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I am on [Tumblr.](https://softfists.tumblr.com)


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